The Most Beautiful Villages of Umbria: Trevi

Trevi, as hilltowns go, is Umbria’s comfort food. Trevi doesn’t challenge your palate with exotic flavours and peculiar spices. Trevi doesn’t rock your world with molecular gastronomy and new-fangled raw food diets. Trevi has nothing to prove; she is understated, unpretentious, and secure in the knowledge that she’ll stick to your ribs and let you leave the table comfortably sated. Which is why, like with any comfort food, you’ll find yourself returning to Trevi over and over again.

Trying to snap a picture of Trevi without an olive tree getting in the way is like trying to snap a picture of an elephant without the trunk getting in the way.

It had been awhile since I headed to Trevi, which is one of the those towns in my geographical slush zone: too close to Assisi to count as a day trip but too far away to bop over for lunch. But I was hankering to get back to one of my pet blogging projects, and though Trevi isn’t the next on the list of The Most Beautiful Villages of Umbria –I’m on the Cs, for those of you paying attention. And don’t give me that look. Yes, it’s taking me awhile to get through the list. Things have come up, people.—fall is Trevi’s season, it being one of the most important olive oil producing areas in the olive oil producing region of Umbria.

So, on a gloriously sunny autumn morning I found myself driving up through the groves blanketing the hills beneath Trevi at that magical hour when the mist is just lifting and the ghostly outlines of the teams of pickers, spreading nets beneath the olive trees and positioning their rickety wooden ladders against the branches, are beginning to emerge from the silver grey. Just as I rounded the last hairpin turn coming up from the valley, the town itself—dramatically dribbling down the sides of its steep hilltop like gravy over a heap of mashed potatoes—caught the first rosy-gold rays of sunlight and, despite the eight cranes hovering over the jumble of rooftops, the pure beauty of it made me catch my breath. And the thought came to me, as it so often does with our favorite comfort foods, “Damn. Why has it been so long?”

I love this old-timey effect. Plus, you can't see all the damned cranes.

Trevi starts its comfort food schtick with the most basic of amenities: a sprawling, free parking lot right at the top of the hill about fourteen feet from the main piazza. To anyone who has passed any time visiting hill towns in Umbria (and, by the way, if you do want to visit hill towns in Umbria, pretty much your only option is to have a vehicle), the deal breaker importance of free, easy, accessible parking is immediately clear. Let’s just say it gets the meal off on the right foot. I stuck my car in Piazza Garibaldi, and passed under the Porta del Lago city gate into the main Piazza Mazzini, which is so film-set ready it would be a clichè…if, of course, it wasn’t real. The accommodating ladies at the tourist information office (unfortunately open only Friday, Saturday, and Sunday…but I discovered that tapping politely on the glass door and smiling winningly might score you a resigned entrance) kitted me out with a MAP and a FREE AUDIO GUIDE of the town. To anyone who has passed any time visiting hill towns in Umbria, the deal breaker importance of friendly infopoint staff who can actually provide such novelties as maps and audio guides is immediately clear.

Just one of the amazing views from Trevi. Brace yourself. You're about to see a lot of 'em.

So, remember your great-aunt Mary Margaret who came over from County Kerry fifty years ago, but never lost her Gaelic brogue and sweet-yet-schoolmarmish cadence? Well, somehow the folks over at the Trevi tourism office tracked her down to do the voice on their audioguide. It was both surreal and soothing to wander through the tiny center with Mary Margaret murmuring in my ear about the Churches of Sant’Emiliano (largely unexceptional inside, but with three pretty Romanesque apses and a 15th century portal outside) and San Francesco (built in the 14th century on the site where Saint Francis admonished an ill-mannered donkey to cut the racket during his sermon, at which point the donkey knelt in silence until Francis had finished. Thus begging the question as to why that won’t work with my kids.) and the various palazzi and piazze.

You want chicken soup for the soul? Well, check these views out.

The audio guide lasts about an hour, but honestly I cherry-picked the explanations, preferring instead to wander the warren of lanes in the tiny center in contemplative silence. As I walked, my pace slowed and my pulse began to match the easy heartbeat of this quiet town. I popped into a couple of museums—the charming and well-done Olive Museum (what else, in the olive oil capital of Umbria?) and surpising Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary Art Museum (even Trevi shakes it up a bit…a little ginger in the oatmeal, so to speak.)—and roamed languidly through their empty, silent halls. I stopped to snap pictures of odd niches, carved doors, smiling artisans in dim workshops, and the views. Especially the views.

This is the view to the San Martino monastery outside of town (temporarily closed due to restoration work).

I came away from Trevi as soothed and settled as if I had just had a big, steaming bowl of chicken noodle soup. Maybe my mind wasn’t expanded, maybe I didn’t have any spiritual epiphanies or life-changing realizations, but sometimes that’s not really what I’m hungry for. Sometimes what I’m really craving is less a question of stomach and more a question of heart.

Ok, I'm done with the views. Maybe...

If you really are hungry while in Trevi, you’re in luck. There are two fabulous restaurants: La Vecchia Posta (Careful, their site plays music at you. Scared the bejeezus out of me.) in the postcard-perfect main piazza and La Taverna del Sette, which has a charming internal courtyard.

Did you love these pictures? Thanks, but they’re not mine. They were used with kind permission by the talented (and generous) photographer Marzia Keller, to whom I am forever grateful. Because my pictures suck.